The Dept. of Energy’s (Washington, D.C.; www.energy.gov) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL; Golden, Colo.; www.nrel.gov) has completed construction on phase one and entered phase two of an Integrated Biorefinery Research Facility (IBRF) — a place for NREL and industry to test demonstration-scale projects and speed the commercialization of biofuels.
"The IBRF is designed specifically to help industry scale up their technology," NREL Team Leader for Partnership Development John Ashworth said. "We have created an empty bay in the facility so someone can bring in their own pretreatment reactor or other equipment required for biochemical biomass conversion. Companies can use part of our system or they can use their own technology and we can run it in parallel with ours. That way, they can see if their system is better than ours."
NREL’s creation is a $33.5 million pilot plant and facility upgrade capable of supporting a variety of advanced biofuels projects. The IBRF boasts a 27,000-ft2 bay with one area where industry partners can test equipment, as well as upgraded laboratories, additional office space, and access to NREL expertise. The IBRF also features enhancements to NREL’s existing biochemical pilot plant. Many along the path to commercialization are focusing on the big three operation units — pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation. But NREL is also looking at the liquid effluent that comes out of the various biochemical conversion processes.